Page 7 of The Hitman's Prince

I grinned. “I’d love to see you try.”

Daren was a spitfire; I’d give him that. I bet he fucked like a monster.

“Vince.” Gideon’s voice was low and dangerous frombehind me, but if he was trying to make me nervous, he was failing miserably.

I tipped my head back and smiled up at him, half-upside down. “North. Where’s your boyfriend?”

“Fletcher is in the kitchen with Luca,” he said.

Bellamy appeared again from under the crook of Gideon’s side, his slender arm wrapping around Gideon’s middle possessively.

“What brings you this way?” Gideon asked me.

I licked my lips with a pretend grimace, gesturing at Bellamy first, then Daren. “Can we speak in private?”

“I keep no secrets from them,” he said. “Not anymore.”

“You can tell them later” I offered. “I would just rather speak to you alone. And Sinclair, ideally. But it sounds like he has his hands full.”

Daren stood with a snort, then took Bellamy into the house. The door swung closed behind them and Gideon sank down into the chair Daren had been in. He looked less worried than he had the last time I saw him. When the six of us had sat around a table and made plans for murder and mutiny.

“You look well, Gideon. Having a dead father suits you.”

He shot me a withering look, and I smoothed a hand down the front of my chest. The door opened again, and I didn’t need to look back to know it was Fletcher Sinclair, heir to Gideon’s dueling dynasty. At least, he had been before they’d both managed to take their fathers out ofthe equation and unify that which generations had struggled to keep separate.

Love was an amazing and dangerous thing. Far more powerful than money and sex.

Speaking of sex, though…

“Angelini,” Fletcher greeted, coming to rest against a pillar with his arms folded in front of his chest.

“That’s so formal,” I teased, tilting my head to the side. “And I’m afraid my business here is exceedinglynotformal.”

“What is your business here?” he asked.

My business was a half-baked idea that I hadn’t put too much thought into, but the loans and the lies in the lines of my father’s financial records had started to give me a headache. I’d already taken Orion’s mouth twice earlier in the day, and a third time seemed to border on an excess I didn’t want to get used to. He was an addicting little thing, though. A fucking siren, if I was being honest.

“We’re friends, right?” I asked.

Gideon made a disagreeable sound in the back of his throat. “That’s a loose word you could use if you had a gun to your head.”

I reached behind me, pulling mine out of the holster and leveling it at his face.

“We’re friends,” Fletcher said, smacking the bottom of the barrel and redirecting my aim toward the blue planks of the porch roof.

I re-holstered my weapon and sighed dramatically. “Friends watch other friends fuck, right?”

For any other man, it would have been an embarrassing question.

I don’t have anyone at home I trust enough to get that raw with. Can I just watch you and the idiots who love you fuck so I can shut my goddamn mind off for an hour? Can I just lose myself in something bigger than I’ll ever be?

“Excuse me?” Fletcher balked, both brows shooting up.

I scrubbed a hand down my face, looking from Gideon to Fletcher and back before settling on Fletcher’s curious stare. His dark hair curled loose around his temples; his blue eyes bore into me like lasers. He wasn’t angry, though. He was…interested. But more than that, he wasn’t scared. Gideon had a reputation, but he’d always been a little skittish. I imagined that was a result of the abuse he’d suffered as a teenager at the hands of his father. Fletcher, though…he’d been raised for war.

“Admittedly, I’m at a disadvantage here. I hope we can keep that our little secret.”

Gideon arched a brow.